The present invention relates to a component mounting apparatus for mounting components on a substrate.
A component mounting apparatus of the prior art is constructed as described hereinafter. That is, the structure comprises a component carrying unit, a chuck provided on the component carrying unit, a component transfer unit for receiving a component held by the chuck, and a head for receiving the component held by the component transfer unit. The head comprises a main head body, a vertically-moving means for the main head body, an insertion nail provided at a lower portion of the main head body, an opening/closing means for the insertion nail, and a turning means for moving the insertion nail in forward and backward directions.
In the afore-said apparatus of the prior art, the turning means for forward and backward movement of the insertion nail is necessary in order to retract the insertion nail after it mounts a component on a substrate. Normally, the turning means retracts the insertion nail by a large margin so that the insertion nail does not hit upon the component when it moves upward after making a retractive movement to the back, even if the component being mounted is considerably large. However, in the case of an apparatus having a structure in which the insertion nail retracts backward by a large margin, the insertion nail collides with other components during a retractive movement of the insertion nail, if the other components have been mounted already on the substrate, and if there are only limited spaces among them.
The foregoing instance is dealt with by replacing the head with one that makes only a small retractive movement. However, this again requires a positioning alignment of the insertion nail especially with respect to the substrate after replacement of the head, thereby impairing workability. Therefore, the present invention aims at improving the workability.
in order to achieve the foregoing object, an apparatus of the present invention has a cam plate, which comprises the afore-said turning means, mounted detachably on the main head body. In other words, a turning locus of an insertion nail toward the back, or a retracting path of the insertion nail after mounting a component, can be altered easily by mounting another cam plate of a different shape, and thereby a density of components mounted on a substrate can be increased. In addition, the invention improves workability, since it requires only a replacement of the cam plate, but no positioning alignment, etc. of the insertion nail with respect to the substrate after the replacement.